fine vs. not so fine

The recent suicides of celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have spurred a discussion on mental health, or mental hygiene, if you prefer, which is good, right? Some people close to these poor unfortunates have expressed surprise at these suicides; some have not. 

We register surprise at these tragedies because of the mismatch between outer appearances and inner feelings.

Is an outward show of happiness an American trait? When I traveled to foreign countries or if I have engaged in conversation with foreign visitors here, more than once I have heard them mock our cheeriness, our brightness. One person pointedly criticized our chirpy "have a nice day" or "how are you." They were British.

We say we're fine, don't we?

The first reason people do that is out of a social convention. Rarely would someone reply to a co-worker in the hallway asking how you are with a literal sob story or anything more than a superficial declaration of fineness. The troubled person doesn't want to be unseemly or overly personal with another who is not much more than an acquaintance, even if the two work side by side eight hours a day five days a week.

By virtue of their training and their mission, sales representatives often exude an avalanche of bonhomie. It evidences the power of positive thinking, in the mold of Dale Carnegie, who wrote the transformative best-seller and whose legacy involves courses and practices.

These are understandable social norms. 

I couldn't tell you whether Americans are different from anyone else on these matters. 

But what if one is not fine?

What are the avenues to travel, the resources to tap? I don't mean help lines, though I suspect they offer measurable value and life-saving tools.

In rooms where people seek recovery from addiction and other malaises, some try to subvert the facade that masks unhappiness by saying f-i-n-e stands for "fucked-up [or frustrated] insecure needy enraged." Variations include  "... neurotic emotional," "needy egotistical," and assorted alternatives. 

And they say, "You're as sick as your secrets."

What's the solution?

Not being a mental health professional, I don't know. I doubt the answer is to be exceedingly frank, candid about secrets, and self-revealing at the drop of a hat. But I would say it's critical to talk to someone, anyone, especially a confidant, a trusted friend.

I recently watched the last several episodes of "Mad Men." If anyone ever needed help, it was Don Draper/Dick Whitman. Near the end, he was suicidal: gone, lost, wandering, meandering, searching, driving through America's heartland to save his own heart.

His escape, his flight, didn't work.

Not exactly.

Remember what did work?

Don/Dick witnesses another man in the same kind of grave pain he is in. In a therapy group, the man tells his story and then collapses into sobs. Don/Dick watches, moved to his core, and walks over and hugs the man for all he's worth, with all he has. Don/Dick is saved by a perfect (very imperfect) stranger, another wounded man just like him, a man who felt invisible to those around him. Don/Dick ferociously embraces the weeping man and also breaks down himself.

So it wasn't a matter of talking.

It was a matter of being there -- literally, being present.

And from what we could see, it saved Draper/Whitman, and presumably the Weeping Man as well.

Something happened.

And why for those two, and not the two mentioned at the top, is a mystery.

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Since the time I followed baseball box scores, at the age of six, I've been a news hound. I devoured something we called "the news." My older brother and I would hungrily await the afternoon delivery of The (Stamford) Advocate, hand it to our father, just home from work at the factory, and then respectfully wait for him to drop the sports section (or any other section, for that matter) after he finished reading it. "Current Events," another name for news, was always my best subject in school all the years before high school, and I was the best in that subject, long before trivia games that featured "current events" became popular. Lately? Not so much. As John Lennon lamented in song, "I read the news today, oh boy." Oh boy is right. What does the Gospel of Matthew say, "wars and rumors of war"? Oh, we've gone beyond wars, rumors of wars, all right. Beheadings, slaughter, burnings, torture, suicide bombings, and myriad forms of mayhem and carnage. Yes, these woes are not new to the human form except in the particulars. But lately I want to avert my eyes . . . and ears and so forth. It does not mean I want to be oblivious to the suffering and travails of the human condition. Though when I was younger, it used to be that this knowledge, these informations, somehow led to more empathy on my part, whether I was moved to action or thought. Was that so? Me, a news nut. Driving around in the car, always sure to catch the NPR news on the hour, if I'm listening to the radio, and not a music CD. Not so much. Not today. Burying my head in the sand, you say? Sounds like the latest atrocity.